Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels (5 page)

She turned the picture toward me. “I believe you kids call him Reese?”

It was an underwater close-up shot of a teenager's face. Sure enough, through the shimmering water in the picture, the chubby, cheerful face of a teenage mer-boy I knew smiled back.

Reese!

Reese had told me that he'd lost his mother but that he always carried her memory around. Suddenly it all made sense.

“So that's why Reese carries your picture in his satchel. He has one of these ID folders, too. I thought he was a klepto, but you're actually his mom?”

“Yup. I had to give him up as soon as he was born. We've stayed in touch ever since, but it's been hard.”

“Ah, man.” My mind was about to explode from information overload.

“Are you okay?” Bridget asked, reaching out to touch my arm.

“Yes, but if you don't mind, can I pass on the clams? What I could really use is the biggest Bridget Burger known to man.”

Breakfast was tenser than usual the next morning after everything that had happened at Bridget's Diner the day before. We sat around the kitchen table, trying to come up with a plan to deal with the possibility that everyone might be dragged back to sea in just over a week.

Another thing throwing us off kilter was having the fourth seat at the breakfast table occupied by a new member of the Baxter family. But instead of looking worried, Serena looked positively blissful about the prospect of a looming mer revolution. She even tried some eggs instead of her canned sardine standby.

Dad was freaking, though. He stood quickly from the table with his plate of half-eaten bacon, which, for Dad's—ahem—healthy appetite, showed exactly how upset he was.

“We'll just build some sort of safe house until this thing blows over,” Dad said as he scraped his leftovers into the garbage can.

“A safe house?” I asked. “Like when the FBI puts someone in the witness protection program?”

“Not exactly. I was thinking of something more high-tech.” Dad's work as an engineer had come in handy when he built us the Merlin 3000. He was obviously back in “mad scientist” mode. “I might be able to use one of our wind tunnels at work to create some kind of reverse force field. Maybe line the tunnel with anti-magnetic foil to block the forces of the moon?”

I wasn't sure his brilliant intellect was going to get us out of this one, though.

“This is the moon we're talking about, Dad. Not a fridge magnet,” I said.

Dad's nervous babbling and enthusiastic plate scraping had me stressed out, too. I pushed my hash browns around my plate and tried to settle the roiling feeling in my gut that came from thinking about the Mermish Council's plan.

Serena munched on her breakfast and leafed through the Social Studies books I'd taken out of the library for our school project. She still couldn't read, but she'd stared at the pictures and made me explain everything as we worked on our project together the night before. I'd never seen anyone so excited about “Rights and Responsibilities of Good Citizenship.”

“Dalrymple, honey,” Mom said to Dad as she circled the next supermoon on our kitchen calendar with a red Sharpie marker. Thursday, September 17. Eight days before my life came crashing (or splashing) down around me. “Mermish Laws have been governing our species for hundreds of thousands of years. I'm not sure there's a scientific solution to this problem. Plus, we can't bring your work into this. That would definitely raise suspicion, don't you think?”

Dad returned to the table and sat down heavily. He leaned back against his chair and rubbed his hand over his head like he always did when he was upset.

“Well, then we'll just get a big bus and drive everyone to the middle of the country, far away from the ocean, and wait it out,” he suggested.

“And then what?” Mom said quietly, reaching for Dad's hand. “What about the next full moon? And the next? We can't run away from this.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Dad looked from Mom to me, then to Serena, then grabbed the jam jar from the middle of the table to soothe his worries with a piece of toast. “Because there's no way I'm losing you guys now that I've got you all back under one roof.”

Dad struggled to get the jam jar's lid open, then gave up and set it back on the table. His face crumpled, and I knew he was about to lose it.

“Don't worry, Dad.” I twisted open the jar and spread jam over a piece of toast for him. “We're not going anywhere. Who would open all the jars if we were gone?”

Serena continued to take hair-styling tips from the eighth graders in our homeroom, and in a matter of days, half a dozen or so ninth graders were wearing their hair the same way. Serena could still barely speak English, but with her easy smile and enthusiastic attitude, kids flocked to her like preschoolers fighting over a newborn kitten.

Without even trying, she had drafted a dozen new friends to help with her campaign for the next week's school election, and by lunchtime on Wednesday, the hallways were filled with her colorful campaign signs.

“It looks like a fourth grader colored them,” I heard Lainey Chamberlain mutter to one of her friends as she taped one of her own professionally silk-screened campaign signs to the wall as Cori and I walked with Serena to meet Luke for Chess Club. Honestly, Lainey looked like she was running for city mayor rather than ninth-grade rep, but if Trey's story about her father's resurrected mall project was any indication, Chamberlains didn't exactly believe in doing anything halfway.

“Let it go,” Cori whispered, sensing me tense up. Lainey had been getting her digs in all day with her snarky remarks.

I was mentally rehearsing telling Lainey that spending a fortune getting signs silk-screened to run for class president was a desperate cry for help, but before I could line up all the words in my head, I heard the creak of Ms. Wilma's office chair.

“Oh, Jade, honey?” Ms. Wilma poked her head out of the school office door and called to me. “And Serena. Good. Can you ladies come in here for a second?”

I stopped, inwardly cringing and hoping Ms. Wilma hadn't heard about Serena's episode with the slushie machine in the cafeteria or how she'd tried to kidnap the betta fish in Mr. Pagliaro's class so she could release it in the ocean.

“Yes?” I asked, walking into the office with Serena and Cori and bracing myself for whatever Ms. Wilma had to say.

“I've been trying to get your grandmother on the phone—can you remind her to bring Serena's school records to bingo for me?” She waved a file folder in the air, which I could only imagine was Serena's mostly empty school file. “The county is cracking down on paperwork, and the Boss Lady wants all the t's crossed and the i's dotted for new registrations.”

“Sure, no problem.” I faked a smile. But how exactly were we supposed to turn in school records when the only school Serena had ever been a part of was a school of mers? I tried to catch Serena's eye, but she was too busy studying the map of Port Toulouse and Talisman Lake again. What was up with Serena's fascination with maps?

I pulled Serena by the arm and headed for the door. “I'll make sure to get Gran on that right away.”

“As soon as you can, okay?” Ms. Wilma rolled her chair to the door with us and glanced toward Principal Reamer's office. “As you know, without those records we won't be able to register Serena for school. That would be a shame.”

“Sure thing,” I said as we made our getaway, but as Ms. Wilma wheeled away, I noticed Lainey Chamberlain looking over from where she was hanging her poster on the bulletin board. Lainey smirked, her brain gears turning so fast that I was sure I could see smoke.

Great. Just what we needed—the fact that Serena's registration was at risk on Lainey's mental radar.

“Hey, Lainey! Looks like your campaign is going well,” I said. Yes, I was tired of Lainey's bad attitude, but I had to distract her from what she'd just heard.

Lainey's mouth twitched slightly.

“My campaign couldn't be going better.” She ripped off a piece of masking tape from the roll with her teeth and plastered it onto the poster. A wry smile grew on her lips. “But, honestly the school election is the least of my worries. I've been more focused on helping the planning committee with the upcoming Fall Folly. I really can't decide what I should wear. What will you be wearing, Jade?”

Fall Folly? What was that? It sounded familiar but I couldn't quite figure out why. Was that some kind of party or dance? And why should I worry about wearing anything in particular? All the lame school dances I'd ever been to didn't require anything more than a clean pair of jeans and a stain-free T-shirt. I glanced at Cori, who gave me a weak smile as if she knew something but wasn't telling me.

“I've got an idea!” Lainey continued in her high-pitched squeal that reminded me of the talking Barbie I used to have as a kid. “Why don't you come by Mother's boutique?”

Mrs. Chamberlain was a clothing designer and had a fancy boutique in the completed part of the new wing of Port Toulouse Mall, thanks to Mr. Chamberlain's construction company's contract.

“Oh…that won't work.” Lainey waved her finger at Serena and Cori's outfits. “We could probably rescue these two fashion disasters, but I don't think Mother stocks plus sizes for you, Jade…”

And there it was. It didn't matter that I knew Lainey was only poking fun at my size because she was being a total turd and trying to get under my skin. It still pulled me down and inward to a place where I wanted to disappear. Instead, I did the next best thing.

I shot off my mouth.

“Listen up, you lip-glossed mouth breather!” I yelled, then motioned to Cori and Serena. “These outfits are
Cori
Originals
. The same designs your mom said were
amazing
when she reviewed Cori's portfolio last year.”

I felt my rampage gaining steam.

“Also,” I continued, “if you think for one second that you have a chance against Serena in this election, you can just go ahead and slip one of those designer shoes off your feet and beat yourself senseless with the pointy end because it is
so
on
!”

Serena blinked wildly, looking from me to Cori to Lainey, not really understanding what was going on. If Finalin wanted his daughter to have a “real” high-school experience, we were off to a very good start!

I stalked away before I actually yanked off Lainey's shoe and carried out my suggestion. Serena and Cori chased after me.

“Hey,” Cori said, grasping my arm for me to stop. “Don't let that jerk get to you.”

“I know, I know, she's just being an idiot.” I stopped to take a few deep breaths to calm down and did my best to keep from crying. “But what is she talking about? What's this Fall Folly thing and why would I have to worry about what I have to wear?”

“Don't freak out,” Cori said.

“Freak out about what?” This couldn't be good.

“It's just the fall formal dance,” Cori said casually. “I didn't mention it because I know how you get about anything to do with clothes shopping.”

It was true. I'd practically had a nervous breakdown in the middle of Hyde's Department Store trying to find a bathing suit with Cori that past June. I shuddered at the thought of standing in front of the dressing room's three-way-mirror Cone of Truth.

“Well, that's easy. If Luke asks me to go, I'll just tell him no thanks,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah…the other part is that it's a ‘folly' dance,” Cori said.

“What's a ‘folly' dance?” I asked cautiously.

“It's named after the first female sailor from Port Toulouse. This Folly Porthouse lady crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her sailboat after the Second World War to get her fiancé instead of waiting for the Navy to bring him back.”

“
Fortune's Folly
? The ship that sank in Folly Passage?” I asked, remembering Gran's story. “The captain was actually a woman?”

“Yeah, it's kind of a ‘girl power' story, so every fall, the high school starts off the year with a dance in her honor where the girl asks the guy out,” Cori said. “I'm already going with Trey and…”

“And what?” I asked.

“Luke was standing right there when I asked Trey.”

“Oh,” I replied. It hadn't occurred to me that now I had an official boyfriend, I'd have to go on actual dates with him. So far we'd just done a lot of hanging out as a group. Me and Luke, Cori and Trey, going to the movies, hanging out at Mug Glug's, going to the skate park…it had been so easy. And so normal—nothing quite as drastic as a formal dance with frou-frou dresses and awkward dancing in uncomfortable shoes.

What would happen if I just didn't ask Luke to the dance? Would his feelings get hurt? Would he care?

“So you mean I need to dress up in some fancy dress and ask a guy out to what can only be described as the least appealing night of my life, all in the name of
girl
power
?” I asked.

“Something like that,” Cori said.

“Right.” I considered everything
wrong
with that picture. “Why do I get the feeling this has all the makings of a good shipwreck?”